Well, it was bound to happen. Just as the Democrats had victory in their sites, someone would make a gaffe that the Republicans could run with, hoping to score an electoral victory. I suppose it had to come from John Kerry who is so adept at losing elections that he felt compelled to use the talent for defeat that he mastered in '04 for '06. It is obvious John Kerry is a wooden Indian disguised as a politician (forgive me my Native Americans brothers) - but that's the only image that really works for him. Unlike the wooden Indians that used to stand outside cigar stores, silent and dignified, this one actually talks. And talks. And talks. And runs and runs for office, which means his mouth cannot be stopped as it races ahead of his brain, or lags far behind his tongue. I thought we would be lucky this year because with his boring stentorian delivery, who listens? But someone actually was listening and they reported his garbled attempt at wit, his feeble attempt to put down Bush which appeared to denigrate the troops.
What amazing disasters ambition can force on any of us - but most of all to a man such as Kerry. Here is a genuine American war hero who takes his one great credential, courage under fire, and disses it all by himself by attempting to tell a joke that is in no way funny. That he misspoke is not surprising, nor is it surprising that Bush and Cheney saw in his words a way to block what appeared to be an inevitable Democratic victory. But a man and his party should not be punished because he is not Jon Stewart. Nevertheless, the press will keep the story alive as the Republican misdeeds cool over the week. Out of the public mind goes Foley's attempts to turn young congressional pages into his personal Fellatio Alger story. Out of mind goes the unrivalled Cheney/Halliburton rape of the American taxpayer, out of mind the selling of the Republican Congress to Abramoff & Co, and most of all, out of mind go the missing WMD. Or at least that is the Republican hope. At last Bush and Cheney have found those missing WMD -- not in Iraq, but in Pasadena City College - where we would never have looked if not for John Kerry. Now the two most elitist men in America, George Bush and Dick Cheney, can condemn Kerry and his party as the elitists who denigrate our brave young men and women. The only thing more predictable than Kerry's screwing up is the way the President and his Vice leapt on his words like starving dogs on a bone. There is much that is good in John Kerry, but much that is just damned dumb. By this time in his life he should have a real understanding of who he is, and where his strengths and weaknesses lie. One thing he is not is the spokesman for the Democrats this year. Perhaps it is that egoistic drive that forced him to take to the road and give speeches, trading on his status as the last Democratic Presidential candidate, and trying to keep the flame alive for his '08 ambitions.
Now John Kerry, for all his failings, is a genuine American hero and a liberal. That is very hard for Republicans to understand, let alone admit. Their hatred for the liberal spirit (with all its implications of generosity and brotherly love) has its roots in the totalitarian spirit, the aristocracy who always feared liberalism and exiled the Voltaires of the world, the Nazis who came to power on a platform that blamed liberalism (read Jews and "cosmopolitans," intellectuals and humanitarians) for all of Germany's ills. Liberalism was equally despised by Stalin and his Communist commissars. First thing they did when they came to power was to imprison and kill the liberals. And one thing that liberals are reluctant to say in this election period is that liberalism has always fought the forces of hatred and darkness. It was the best product of the age of reason. It is not a soft minded set of convictions, but a realistic view of people's needs for a living wage and a life that is not imposed upon by the state. There is only one person who should be punished for Kerry's foul up, Kerry himself. If he has not screwed up the chances of his party this year, and I trust that he has not, he will not be allowed to do so in the future as their Presidential candidate. But that matters little beside what happens next week.
The reality is that most Americans are smarter than John Kerry and the Republican leadership. And their chance to prove it will come next Tuesday.